The following news item was published by the
Press Association in February. Back in January 2004, the Mojahedin had
claimed that 305 UK parliamentarians from both Houses of Parliament had
supported its demand to be removed from the list of terrorist entities. At
that time, the Mojahedin was asked to publish their names as verification.
No such list was forthcoming. This time, the Mojahedin have accepted that
the names be published. But what has happened to the other 293
parliamentarians?

By way of explanation, we have also published
below a brief extract from a recent interview with Ebrahim Khodabandeh from
Evin prison [to be published later this month]. Mr Khodabandeh, a former
member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is a well known figure
in the UK parliament where he spent many hours lobbying on behalf of the
MKO. Since his arrest in Syria on charges of smuggling money and documents
out of Iraq for the Mojahedin, he has spoken and written several times about
his experience of the MKO and the NCRI.

Twelve United Kingdom parliamentarians today supported a call for the main
Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin, to be removed from the
international list of terrorist groups.

The plea is made in a half-page advertisement in the International Herald
Tribune, in which they say: “At a time of mounting international concern
over Iran, we believe it is now time to end the blacklisting of the People’s
Mojahedin to help open the way for democratic change in Iran.”

They claim they have been blacklisted at the behest of the Iranian mullahs.

Q. You have worked for the NCRI in
political circles in Europe. Could you explain the kind of work you
undertook and evaluate how effective that work was?

…Although the Council still [post 9/11] had
some effective support amongst parliamentarians due to their past connection
and also due to their ignorance about events, it did not have any contact
within the British government whatsoever. In fact, all foreign affairs
departments everywhere were closed to its members. On one occasion, some
British Labour MPs were asked why they had once supported the PMOI [People's
Mojahedin Organization of Iran] which their Government denounces as a
terrorist organization. Their answer was that as MPs in the opposition they
had no information about the hard facts, but that in Government they have
access to intelligence which clearly demonstrates that the Organization is
terrorist in nature.

In my opinion, the only effect our hard work
collecting signatures ever had was just to lift the morale of our supporters
to some small extent by advertising the worldwide support we had gained.
This of course was to cover up our weakness in getting any results from our
policy inside Iran of conducting military operations in the cities. The
signatures collected from parliamentarians, which our department of
International Relations had become so expert in, had no significant value in
the real diplomatic world and had no effect on the policies of statesmen
toward the organization in the relevant countries.

Q. If Iranians do not accept the MKO's
claims to support democracy, do you think this means that Western
politicians are being deceived?

I would categorize Western politicians in two
groups. Ineffective ones such as those in parliament and effective ones like
those in the Foreign Office. The first group could be easily deceived since
they are not necessarily expert in every field and do not have access to
enough information. However, I believe that if all the parliamentarians in
the world supported the NCR it would not make much difference to the
political situation in Iran. The second group could not easily be deceived,
but they do follow their short-term interests. In the West, this group has
its own relations with the Islamic Republic and from time to time, they have
found the NCR a useful tool. The NCR gained its relative popularity among
Western public opinion in the past due to the mistakes made by Iranian
diplomats rather than its own efforts; the sort of mistakes they no longer
commit, having gained in maturity and experience through the years. Support
for the NCR among western politicians has, as a result, gradually declined.
Unfortunately, as the Iranian regime has moved towards moderation and
self-control the PMOI has shifted to a more extremist policy. After the
horrifying events of September 11th, it was possible for the
Islamic Republic to take advantage of the PMOI's mistakes and to corner them
politically on the international scene.